


Baudelaire and the Blitz

by LostinFic



Series: Mercier x Betty oneshots [5]
Category: A Passionate Woman (TV), Spies of Warsaw (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - World War II, F/M, Ficlet, Romance, Teninch Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-26 08:15:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7566859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LostinFic/pseuds/LostinFic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A late night at the office. A poem. A rush of adrenaline.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Baudelaire and the Blitz

**Author's Note:**

> @asmilelikestarlight asked if Jean-François ever reads to Betty. This turned out quite different than what we discussed.
> 
> I’ve been exploring the idea of Jean-François and Betty meeting during WWII and working together for the French resistance. It’s sort of a teaser, I guess.

The offices of the Secret Operation Executives in Dorset Square were abuzz 24/7. The war never stopped and neither did the French resistance whether out on the field or in London.

Betty rolled her neck and shoulders with a groan. She had been trying to decipher this message for most of the afternoon and well into the evening. A dark handkerchief covered her desk lamp to respect the blackout even with the curtains drawn. Air raid sirens should blare sometime in the next hour. Hopefully, she could finish before that and get back to her lodgings with the other girls. It would be easier, of course, to decode the message if she could ask the radio operator in Bordeaux to send his it again without so many mistakes— or simpler yet if they were not coded at all — but every transmission could be intercepted by Germans and lead to the agent’s death. Their lives as well as the success of the operation depended on Betty deciphering this bloody coded message.

“I’m taking five,” she told the other girls working with her, “anyone need anything?”

“I need a break too. Let’s get a cuppa,” Judith said.

They headed for the kitchenette and prepared coffee. She had grown to love it as it was their French colleague’s beverage of choice.

Betty noticed a faint light coming from Colonel Mercier’s office. He was the director’s right-hand man. And more importantly to Betty, he was the one who recruited her to work for the SOE. He had seen in her qualities she had not known she possessed until now. 

“Your colonel’s still here.”  
“He’s not mine,” Betty mumbled.  
“It’s obvious you’re sweet on him.”

Betty’s cheeks flared at the thought that everyone had noticed she fancied him. How humiliating. She had tried not to let it distract her from the important work they did here.  A few times now, when the office was quieter, they’d had a nice talk. And lately, when she ate her lunch in the park across the street, he joined her. Sometimes, she thought… She shook her head at her own foolishness.

“You should see yourself when he walks into the room,” Judith continued, “you light up like a Christmas tree… He does too.”  
“What?”  
“Not denying it anymore, are ya?”  
“Judith!”  
“Sometimes he comes in the transmission room when you’re not there, and I can tell he’s looking for you.”  
“He’s not.”  
“I swear, Bets, your desk is the first he looks at. When you’re not in, he says he forgot something, and he always comes by again later.”  
“You’re having me on.”  
Betty searched her friend’s face for signs of lying or mockery, instead she found annoyance.  
“I wouldn’t do that to you.” Judith thrust two cups in Betty’s hands. “Take one to him. I’ll look over your indecipherable message.”

Betty took a deep breath to steady her nerves. She smoothed her hair and pinched her cheeks.

In the dimly lit room, she found him sitting at his desk. Files had been pushed aside to make room for a pile of books. He looked hard at work with his shirt sleeves rolled up to his biceps and a deep crease between his eyebrows. Betty cleared her throat to make her presence known.  
“Miss Adler, come in. Do you need something?”  
“Er, no, I just thought— I saw the light…” She placed the cup of coffee in front of him. ”Hope I’m not bothering you.”  
“Thank you. Not at all. Please, sit.”  
The invitation made her smile, but Judith’s words came back to her and she schooled her features immediately. She smoothed her red skirt over her knees, keeping her head down.

Mercier’s chair creaked as he leaned back. He ran a hand through his already disheveled hair.

“What are all the books for?” Betty asked.  
“Poems for ciphers.”

Part of his work was to prepare and coordinate agents who would be parachuted into Nazi-occupied France. Each agent had to memorize a poem which they used to encode the messages that Betty and her coworkers then decoded. They contained details about operations and requests for material. The system was flawed as Leo Marks, head of cryptography, never failed to mention, the codes too easy to crack when the keys could be found in any schoolboy books.

“I am trying to find one easy to remember but not popular.” Mercier explained. “Perhaps you could help me. After all, the girls will have to use it too.”  
“Sure.”

He rose from his chair with a small leather-bound book in hand and came to sit on the edge of the desk, right in front of Betty. His knee was only an inch from hers, if she were to let her legs fall open just a smidge…

“What do you think of this one? It was written by Raimbaud: Elle était fort déshabillée; Et de grands arbres indiscrets; Aux vitres jetaient leur feuillée; Malinement, tout près, tout près. Assise sur ma grande chaise; Mi-nue, elle joignait les mains. Sur le plancher; frissonnaient d'aise; Ses petits pieds si fins, si fins.“

His voice sounded different, smoother, it flowed like a stream over polished river rocks. Whether he was doing it on purpose or not, his voice had lowered too. He let his legs fall open, just a smidge. His knee touched hers. Her heart leaped. From that single point of contact, warmth radiated through her.  

“Do you like it?” he asked.  
“It’s lovely.” She bit her bottom lip.  
He didn’t smile with his mouth but with his eyes. A glimmer of affection.   
“Is there another one?” she asked.  
This time a corner of his mouth twitched into a smirk. He knew what he was doing. What they were doing. She rested her head back and dared lean her leg more purposely against his.

“Baudelaire? Voici venir les temps où vibrant sur sa tige; Chaque fleur s'évapore ainsi qu'un encensoir; Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l'air du soir; Valse mélancolique et langoureux vertige.”

He read each stanza slowly. His fingertips brushed her leg, tiny swirls, barely there, swaying to the rhythm of his words. She asked for another one, and he obliged her. All pretense of work gone.

She forgot other people in the building. The coffees cooled. Night settled in. In the London sky, searchlight beams competed with the Moon. And on the continent, soldiers turned their weary eyes to it and prayed to live to see it again tomorrow.

A sudden worry creeped up on Betty. “Why are you choosing a poem?”  
“For the cipher.” He closed the poetry book.  
“Field agents choose their own poems,” she said, “not their commanding officers.”  
“Yes.”

A lump rose in Betty’s throat. “But you— No. You’re not an agent, you supervise the operations.”  
Mercier crossed his arms and straightened up on his feet. “The _Pâtissier_ Network lost their chief and radio operator. I know the region very well. The mission is time-sensitive.”

A hole opened in Betty’s chest, but it was not her place to express sadness. It was not just that she fancied him, but he was the one person she knew she could count on here. In the whole of London, really. She had come here at his request.

“Betty,” he said her name like he had the poem, voice low and soft.  
She kept her head down, hiding her emotions. He cupped her cheek, coaxing her to look up at him.

Air-raid alarms resounded, startling them. Mercier cursed and grabbed her hand. He guided her out of his office and down the corridor. There was a shelter out back. He started walking faster, and her grip tightened around his fingers. She didn’t want to let go.

The German bomber’s engines thrummed. The building shook. Metal wailed. Dust snowed down. A woman screamed. They ran down the steps. Another explosion. Another flight of stairs. Their palms sweaty. A knuckle-white grip. _Stay with me._

They didn’t make it to the shelter.

Right outside the building, she shoved him against the brick wall and pushed up on her toes to kiss him.

Betty pulled away with a gasp and covered her mouth, mortified by her own impulses.  
“Sorry.”    
“If I had known, I would have volunteered to go to France sooner.”  
“Don’t laugh.”  
He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “Betty, I have thought of you every day since meeting you. And I will think of you every day until my return.”  
“Me too. Every day. Every hour. Every second.”

He wrapped an arm around her waist to pull her closer. His eyes flitted to her lips. “May I?”  
She gave a tiny nod, and his lips crashed to hers. She pressed her body to his, arms wrapped around his neck. She was dizzy with desire, but the earth shook under their feet. He took her hand once more, and they ran for shelter. 

Tonight they would be safe in each other’s arms. 


End file.
